The present invention relates to wear improvement in Titanium alloys. More specifically the present invention describes a process where titanium alloy is made better resistant to sliding wear and fretting fatigue.
Titanium alloys are particularly subject to problems of galling and wear. Their service life can be drastically reduced when sliding or fretting is present. Various coatings have been tried to alleviate this situation. However, many standard coatings such as platings or plasma sprayed coatings do not adhere adequately to titanium. All coatings have the disadvantage of changing the dimension of the part. This can require further finishing, and may be unacceptable for some applications. Ion implantation has the advantage of eliminating adhesion problems and requiring no further finishing. While ion implantation has improved wear resistance in steel, direct ion implantation of titanium alloys has heretofore failed to give an adequate degree of protection.